On Travel Writing

Speaker:

Anthony Doerr and Rolf Potts

27 Feb 2012

2:00 PM

Campanile Room, Memorial Union

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Anthony Doerr is the author of four books, The Shell Collector, About Grace, Four Seasons in Rome, and, most recently, Memory Wall, which takes place on four continents and addresses issues from Alzheimer's in South Africa to infertility in Wyoming to fishing for endangered sturgeon in Lithuania. Rolf Potts has reported from more than sixty countries for the likes of National Geographic Traveler, The New Yorker, Slate.com and Outside. He is perhaps best known for promoting the ethic of independent travel and his book on the subject, Vagabonding: An Uncommon Guide to the Art of Long-Term World Travel and, more recently, Marco Polo Didn't Go There: Stories and Revelations from One Decade as a Postmodern Travel Writer. Part of the Symposium on Wildness, Wilderness and the Creative Imagination.

---- This lecture was made possible in part by the generosity of F. Wendell Miller, who left his entire estate jointly to Iowa State University and the University of Iowa. Mr. Miller, who died in 1995 at age 97, was born in Altoona, Illinois, grew up in Rockwell City, graduated from Grinnell College and Harvard Law School and practiced law in Des Moines and Chicago before returning to Rockwell City to manage his family's farm holdings and to practice law. His will helped to establish the F. Wendell Miller Trust, the annual earnings on which, in part, helped to support this activity.